Hardwood over tile??

I need some opinions, please. I have a smaller home, single level app. 1,000 sq. feet. The home currently has tile floors, 18 in. on a diagonal throughout the home. The tile appears to have been placed prior to baseboard, in other words the tile runs under the baseboard no grout line at the junction.

The entire home has walls which are of wood mostly pine boards running horizontally. In one room the walls are of a much darker wood, maybe a cypress or oak. Very dark color, also running horizontally.

My question is twofold:
1. would wood floors be too much wood? Is it preferable to have different materials on floor and walls? if I go wood floors lighter or darker?

2. I had 2 handymen look at the home. One said I need to completely remove the tile before placing wood. The other said "just go over the wood. You will PROBABLY be O.K." Removing tile and thinset would be a huge job regardless of who does it. Not to mention the dust!!

What is the preferred method? I was thinking make it a DIY but I have done one 12x12 room in Pergo years ago and I just don't want to tackle a whole home. I do want hardwood as opposed to Pergo.

I will likely hire a floor contractor as opposed to handyman. Does the contractor remove and replace baseboard or does he just remove and leave it to me to replace?

Never having done this before I am at a loss as you can tell.

Thanks

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Hardwood over tile??

Real soild wood flooring would never in a millon years work just going over a tile floor. You would not even be able to drive the fasters in, I'd never let that guy have anything to do with my home again to even suggest it "might" work.
For real wood the tile has to go.
Not a great idea but engineered flooring can be installed as a floating floor and it still would have a real wood top layer and look and feel like real wood.

The best way by far is to completly get rid of the tile so it does not effect every doors way, baseboard heights, ECT. There may be more involved depending on what's under that tile.

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Hardwood over tile??

Quote:

Originally Posted by joecaption

Real soild wood flooring would never in a millon years work just going over a tile floor. You would not even be able to drive the fasters in, I'd never let that guy have anything to do with my home again to even suggest it "might" work.
For real wood the tile has to go.
Not a great idea but engineered flooring can be installed as a floating floor and it still would have a real wood top layer and look and feel like real wood.

The best way by far is to completly get rid of the tile so it does not effect every doors way, baseboard heights, ECT. There may be more involved depending on what's under that tile.

So I am looking at a pretty big project! Looks like I may need to save my pennies.

Hardwood over tile??

I will likely hire a floor contractor as opposed to handyman. Does the contractor remove and replace baseboard or does he just remove and leave it to me to replace?

The one time I had someone do a floor in my home, they R&R'd the baseboard trim. I would have been better off doing that myself.

If you want wood floors over a tile floor, I would look at floating an engineered floor (either glued tongues or click lock). Be sure to look at a lot of samples, because there is a huge difference between different flooring (even within the same brand).

What I look for? Wear layer thickness (2 - 4 mm). Voids in the plys beneath the wear layer. Quality of the milling (that is, the edges, especially tongues, grooves, and click profiles). Quality of the plys (is it a hardwood or soft?). That sort of thing. Very quickly, you'll be able to distinguish between good quality and crap.

A good quality engineered flooring won't be any cheaper than solid hardwood - in fact, it'll probably cost more. But it will also perform as well, if not better. The cheap stuff is cheap stuff.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with cheap. It's a matter of what you can afford and what you want. I'm upgrading the materials in my home now, but twenty years ago I could only afford what I could afford.

Hardwood over tile??

In the same situation. Though it's just one room. In my case added complication of there being a non-level floor. Bought some of the laminate stuff that is like a puzzle--attaches. Installed came, looked at floor, ran his long stick across it, and said there were too many deviations and it would have to be leveled, and even then that would create big problems with the doors because at one corner where there is a door it is and 1.5 inch drop. So the door would have to be shaved an inch and a half.

But the other issue here is this: those tiles are so ugly. They are painfully ugly. Dirty. Just awful. Kill the room. But taking them up will be a nightmare I now see. And leveling them also something totally beyond my reach.

My handyman said, "just get a mop and live with the tiles." Which is the same thing to do as we do not have money to throw around really--new house, we've been drained getting it in shape. But that floor! It's a nightmare of a floor.